Exited founder Barak Kaufman on the loneliness of a win and Wonderful's rocket growth
Key points
Key takeaways from the Not Another CEO podcast interview with Barak Kaufman, partner at Vine Ventures and chief strategy officer of Wonderful (September 2026):
From Insight to the exit. Kaufman started as an investor at Insight Partners before co-founding Intello, a SaaS management platform, which was sold to Salepoint in 2021.
PEF, referral only. The Post-Exit Founders community he launched four years ago has grown past 7,000 exited founders across 12 countries and four continents, with every member admitted through referral; Kaufman personally onboarded almost every member one-on-one until the community reached roughly 2,000.
Identity loss is the pattern. Having met around 2,000 exited founders, Kaufman says about 95% describe identity loss — selling feels "very weird and very lonely", as founders discover how much of their identity was tied to the role, constantly reinforced by well-meaning questions about the company.
Wonderful's wedge. The Tel Aviv-based applied AI company started in January 2025 treating customer experience as "a foot in the door" outside North America, then expanded from conversational agents into back-office agents and app replacements; enterprise-ready computer-use agents in late 2025 accelerated the push into longer-horizon workflows.
Rocket growth. Less than two years old at recording, Wonderful had grown to roughly 850 employees across more than 30 countries, with revenue moving from $1M to $70M and a few customers already at eight-figure annual contracts.
SaaS vs AI economics. Intello's average contract was about $30k a year with the largest customers in the low six figures; Wonderful sells on consumption rather than licences, anchoring deals to labour displacement and delivered value.
What stays the same. Kaufman argues A+ talent, team enablement and classic enterprise sales still decide who wins — engineers at Wonderful may no longer write code line by line, but stability, security, culture and the innovator's dilemma still apply.
Founder-first investing. Although a partner at Vine Ventures, Kaufman identifies as a founder rather than an investor; twice a year he seeks out Israeli exited founders to back as early as possible, often pre-idea, to help them build generational companies.
Read more: Not Another CEO
